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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29872023">Sleeping Beauty</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheTruthBetween/pseuds/TheTruthBetween'>TheTruthBetween</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Supernatural</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Canonical Character Death, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, F/M, Guilt, Incest, Necrophilia, Parent/Child Incest, Pregnancy, Resurrection, Timey-Wimey, Unrequited Love</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-16 02:02:22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,797</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29872023</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheTruthBetween/pseuds/TheTruthBetween</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Mary is dead. Dean holds on too tightly.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Dean Winchester/Mary Winchester</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Sleeping Beauty</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Dean holds his mother’s empty body. She’s warm, but he knows it won’t last, not without breath in her lungs and the beating of blood in her veins. So he holds her.</p><p>And waits.</p><p>Half an hour passes before Sam convinces him they need to go, and he carries her to the Impala, gently tucking her into the back seat. He sits with her, holds her, won’t let her go.</p><p>Sam drives.</p><p>By the time they arrive back at the bunker, Mary’s skin is pale and grey and cool to the touch. Dean carries her inside and refuses to let anyone else touch her. He settles her into her bed like he’s tucking her in to sleep, then locks the door.</p><p>He doesn’t leave.</p><p>*</p><p>It doesn’t feel right to undress her, but it’s worse to leave her like that, in the clothes she died in. Looking almost like she’d open her eyes and smile at him any second, if only she wasn’t so grey.</p><p>He takes her clothes off slowly. He doesn’t mean anything by it; he just wants to change her into something more fitting, the sweatpants and long t-shirt she wears (<em>wore</em>) when she’s ready for bed, but still wandering around the bunker.</p><p>Somewhere between struggling to hold her upright to pull off her tank and laying her back down with her bra undone, he realizes he’s hard in his pants.</p><p>It’s wrong.</p><p>It’s <em> so </em> wrong.</p><p>But it’s always been wrong and he’s always wanted her. He loves her, in all the ways a son shouldn’t. It’s always been his burden to bear, one he never wanted to push onto her.</p><p>Now she’s gone and her body is all he has left.</p><p>His hands tremble as he finishes stripping her. Her nightclothes remain folded next to her bed. His clothes join them in a rumpled pile.</p><p>Her skin is cool against his as he lays against her, willing some of his own body heat to sink into her, to warm her with his touch. It doesn’t work. He kisses her anyway.</p><p>Her lips are slack, unresponsive, her mouth falling open with the pressure of his kiss. He licks into her mouth like he’d been invited.</p><p>He doesn’t kiss her for long, her chilled unresponsiveness reminding him that she’s <em> dead </em> and he’s taking something she never gave him.</p><p>Moving down her body, he mouths her breasts, sucks her nipples. They’re soft in his mouth, under his tongue. He wishes they were tight with arousal but knows he’ll never have that. So he takes what he can from the body left beneath him.</p><p>It’s instinct to part her legs, to press against her and seek entry, but he’s denied by the dry tightness he’s confronted with, another reminder of what this isn’t. And what it is.</p><p>On a hope and a prayer (<em>he’s going to hell</em>), he opens the drawer of the small nightstand next to her bed, and his prayer is answered (<em>not by God, God wouldn’t approve of this</em>) when he finds a small bottle of lube, half empty.</p><p>He’s doesn’t use the lube to slick himself up. He uses it on her instead, drizzling it directly between her legs, using his fingers to spread it around, to open her up and funnel more wetness into her. It’s an illusion, but when he finally pushes inside in the way he’s always wanted, the illusion almost feels real.</p><p>He can pretend she wants him.</p><p>The <em> illusion </em> is almost real, but the sight is not, her only movements the rhythmic jerk of her body with the thrust of his hips, her expression lax and bland and grey, and he curls forward, hiding his face in her cool neck, her soft hair.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” the words breathe from his lips, turning into a mantra of “I’m sorry” and “I love you” and “Mom.”</p><p>And then the mantra stops with a groan, the quiet sound of the mattress moving, skin whispering against skin ends.</p><p>Silence reigns until the soft sound of shuddered breaths becomes audible, sobs choked back by sheer willpower.</p><p>“<em>Fuck</em>.”</p><p>*</p><p>In the morning, she’s stiff and has gone from cool to <em> cold </em> and it’s not right. It’s not <em> Mary</em>. Not anymore. And he needs her back.</p><p>Dean dresses her before he leaves, irrationally wanting to keep her warm (<em>keep his secret</em>), and puts a note on the door threatening all manner of grievous injury and death to any who might disturb Mary’s body. He’s gone for hours in Cas’s truck, comes back with equipment he hauls into the bunker himself, and then is gone again.</p><p>The next time he comes back, he’s pulling a trembling, blindfolded doctor with him.</p><p>He leaves the doctor with Sam, making it clear just what will happen if his brothers lets the man go, then goes looking for Cas, leaving behind the sound of Sam’s voice trying to reassure the frightened doctor. Words that sound like “he’s desperate” float down the hallway.</p><p>Dean ignores them.</p><p>When he finds Cas, he pulls the angel to Mary’s room, pointing at her body, stiff in rigor and grey and <em> so cold</em>.</p><p>“Heal her.”</p><p>The corners of Cas’s eyes squint in confusion. “Dean, she’s dead. There’s nothing to heal.”</p><p>Dean shakes his head, lips thinning in anger. He moves to the bed, lifting her into his arms. It’s uncomfortable, unnatural. She doesn’t conform to his embrace the way she should. “I know you can heal her body. Do it.”</p><p>“To what end?”</p><p>“Heal her!” Dean shouts.</p><p>“Dean, there’s no point.”</p><p>Growling, Dean reaches up with one hand and grips Cas’s trench coat tightly, threateningly. “If you do anything on this god-forsaken <em> rock</em>, you heal her right now.”</p><p>Cas sighs, reaches out with two fingers against his better judgement, and touches the cold forehead. It warms beneath his fingers.</p><p>Mary still doesn’t breathe.</p><p>Dean releases Cas and tightens his grip on Mary, her body lax once more, and buries his face in her hair, rocks her slightly. He doesn’t seem to notice that she is still <em> dead</em>. She is warm.</p><p>After a moment, just a moment, he lifts his head and yells for Sam, for the doctor.</p><p>They arrive in moments and Dean carefully sets Mary back down on the bed, closes the door with the doctor inside the room and Sam and Cas out. He takes off the doctor’s blindfold.</p><p>“She’s dead,” he says. “Bring her back.”</p><p>The doctor stutters, fear and denials, but the equipment is right there and Dean yells threats and training kicks in.</p><p>It takes some time -- these things always do -- but Mary is resuscitated, hooked up to machines to breathe for her, to pump blood around her body, IV bags to keep her hydrated and nourished. She’s alive. But she’s still dead.</p><p>Dean takes the doctor back, blindfolded again, and gives him money for his trouble.</p><p>When he gets back to the bunker, Cas and Sam are looking at him with pity, with heartbreak, with concern. He knows they think he’s crazy. He’s lost it. He doesn’t care. Because he can afford to lose his mind, but he can’t afford to lose <em> her</em>.</p><p>Sam makes the mistake of softly reminding him that she’s not coming back. That it’s just a shell on life support, unable to hold a soul.</p><p>He gets a broken nose for it.</p><p>And Dean locks himself in Mary’s room again.</p><p>*</p><p>A week passes.</p><p>And then a month.</p><p>And then two more.</p><p>Dean stops hunting. Stops living. He only leaves Mary’s room to eat and go on medical supply runs.</p><p>Most of the time he keeps the door to the room locked, but sometimes he allows Sam or Cas inside. If they notice the room smells like sex and despair, they don’t comment. Dean thinks they’re checking on Mary. They’re actually checking on him.</p><p>And then one day, five months after she died (<em>she’s still dead</em>), Sam notices something he hadn’t picked up on before. Something that scares him.</p><p>“Dean.”</p><p>“What,” Dean says, sitting next to the bed, holding Mary’s hand, his eyes on her face.</p><p>Sam hesitates, unsure how to put it, unsure he wants to know the reasons behind it. “... Mom’s put on weight.”</p><p>“What?” Dean drags his eyes away, looks up at Sam.</p><p>Sam points. “Look. Her stomach. How is that even possible?”</p><p>Dean’s brow furrows, looking at the slight bulge to Mary’s stomach that he hasn’t noticed before. And then the penny drops and his expression clears in shock. “I gotta go do something.”</p><p>It’s hell to tear himself away from her, but he has to <em> know</em>. It doesn’t take long to find a drugstore. He’s back in record time.</p><p>The room is empty again, save for that still body on the bed, the only movement the rhythmic raising and lowering of her chest as the machine breathes for her.</p><p>Dean takes out a syringe and, heart in his throat, gently slips it into Mary’s arm, pulling back on the plunger so a small amount of blood collects in the tube. His hands shake as he carefully drips the blood onto the sample area of the stick he’d bought. And waits.</p><p>The blood slowly creeps across the strip. The control line appears. And then the test line.</p><p>“Fuck.”</p><p>*</p><p>For the first time in months, Dean spends more time outside the room than inside. It’s not an improvement.</p><p>He paces. Harried, stressed, desperate.</p><p>He asks Cas question after question about Heaven, about Mary in Heaven. Was she happy? Would she be okay coming back? (<em>“She can’t come back, Dean.” Angels' noses don’t break.</em>)</p><p>He justifies it to himself, and then he calls Rowena.</p><p>“It’s just a shell, Dean, it can’t support life,” Rowena reminds him. Her, he doesn’t punch. It’s a near thing.</p><p>“It already is,” he says instead. “She’s pregnant.”</p><p>A pin dropping would’ve sounded like a shotgun going off as Rowena and Sam and Cas absorb that information. As they understand just what it means.</p><p>“Dean,” Rowena is the first to speak, her eyes wide with horror, with realization.</p><p>“Lecture me later,” Dean says. He means it. He knows it’s fucked up. “Right now, bring her back.”</p><p>Cas says it’s a bad idea. Sam says it’s not fair to Mary. Dean doesn’t care. Rowena doesn’t know what’s <em> right </em> but she feels it’s only right to try. She still doesn’t think it will work.</p><p>The spell doesn’t take long. Right before its completion, the machines are turned off, the tube down Mary’s throat removed.</p><p>Magenta lightning flashes in the room.</p><p>They all hold their breath.</p><p>And then…</p><p>Mary’s eyes slowly flutter open, and Dean watches her with his heart in his throat.</p><p>“Mom?” he asks, his low voice rough with emotion.</p><p>Mary’s lips stretch into a smile. “Dean.”</p><p>She’s back.</p><p>She’s back.</p><p><em> She’s back</em>.</p>
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